TSA: Wounded Soldiers Are Potential Terrorists

The TSA may have graciously changed their rules allowing knives 2.36 inches or less in length (if it’s 2.37 inches, you’re a terrorist), but they still think people in wheelchairs are secretly planning to blow up the plane they’re about to board. A little ironic considering that the terrorists on 9/11 used box cutters probably shorter in length than the knives they now allow. And what’s the excuse for all the security theater? Oh, yeah. We live in a post-9/11 world, and we wouldn’t want that to ever happen again. So, we’re going to ban liquids of more than 3.5 ounces, turkey gravy, peanut butter and the 4th Amendment, none of which were actually used on 9/11. But the blades that were used? Yeah, you can bring those on now.

Thanks to these completely irrational rules, we’ve seen the TSA harass and embarrass elderly people, toddlers and those who have to get around in wheelchairs, which they routinely test for explosives.

Last week, a group of Marines flew in to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport on their way to San Diego, and a wheelchair-bound soldier was harrassed and humiliated by agents. This Marine had lost both his legs in an IED explosion somewhere in the war-torn Middle East, and he had prosthetic legs.

Representative Duncan Hunter issued a formal complaint against the TSA. Here’s how he described the incident:

“A TSA officer asked the Marine to stand and walk to an alternate area, despite the fact that he physically could not stand or walk on his own. With numerous TSA officers sitting and unwilling to assist, an officer then made him remove his legs, then put them back on, only to advance to a secondary screening location where he was asked again to stand, with extraordinary difficulty, while his wheelchair was examined for explosives.”